16 billion francs still in public’s hands

28 June 2005

BRUSSELS — A little over 16 billion Belgian francs, valued at EUR 400 million, has not been exchanged for the joint European currency.

Instead of returning them to the National Bank (NBB), Belgians are still holding on to 1.8 billion Belgian coins.

That is equivalent to EUR 188 million in coinage, or more than half of the Belgian coins in circulation when the euro was introduced at the start of 2001.

Belgian coins could have been exchanged for euros up until the end of 2004, newspaper ‘De Standaard’ reported on Tuesday.

But anyone who still has Belgian coins can hand them in to post offices or the NBB up until Thursday (30 June).

The coins collected will be exchanged for euros and donated to the emergency relief funds 12-12 and 11.11.11 set up after the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster last year.

Old Belgian notes can be exchanged for euros at any time. Currently, there are EUR 209 million worth of Belgian notes still in the hands of the public.

In particular, there are still 200,000 of the BEF 10,000 notes to be handed in to the national bank.
 
At the time of the introduction of the new currency, EUR 1 was fixed at a value of BEF 40.3399.

[Copyright Expatica News 2005]

Subject: Belgian news